Everybody wants to be a cat, because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at.
With orientation out of the way, I started my actual job at Cracker Barrel on Sunday, and today was my second day. The job seems overwhelmingly more enjoyable than that of Wendy’s. We get paid breaks, and we are sometimes able to take more than one break using the honor system rather than actually documenting our breaks. Most of the people I’ve come in contact with have been friendly people, and the management staff seems to be competent and professional, even going as far as to give complements and take part in the labor. Washing dishes is really easy too, even though the guy I was working with today was complaining about how the two of us were the only dishwashers. The problem was that he was going way too slow, and he took more than enough “bathroom breaks.” Yes, there were hundreds of dishes that kept piling up, but he wasn’t working fast enough. He left for awhile, and I was the only dishwasher for about an hour (all by myself on my second day). I did just fine.
I only have 15½ hours this week, but it’s only my first week. I checked out the schedule, and all the other dishwashers have between 32-36 hours (the normal amount of hours). So, hopefully within a few weeks, I’ll have a decent amount of hours. Yesterday was unofficially my last day at Wendy’s. I told them that I was leaving because of school. I don’t know how the two managers don’t know I have another job; I basically told everyone else- going as far as going in there one night in my Cracker Barrel uniform to check my schedule. I just told them to write me off the schedule for now, even though that “for now” is hopefully going to be indefinite. I just want to have a job there in case things go wrong at Cracker Barrel. Basically, the only thing that could go wrong is a lack of hours. When January comes and I’m hopefully student teaching, my schedule is going to be really demanding. I’ll probably be in school from 7-3 on Monday through Friday. As far as work goes, I can still work anytime Saturday and Sunday and maybe one or two shorter evening shifts during the week.
I need to work as much as I can, because I’m essentially broke. I paid my leftover tuition (~$1700) and emergency room bill ($774) to get it out of the way. I still owe the foot doctor some $850, but he hasn’t hounded me with bills yet. That means I have around $430 left in my savings account, and I got a surprise $300 bill in the mail from some doctor from Mercy. Apparently, it was a bill I forgot about, and I have less than two weeks to pay it. That means my savings fund is going to be dangerously low. Come this next semester, I will get around $1000 extra from financial aid (thanks to the elusive Pell grant). That money will boast my savings long enough for me to finish the winter semester. I don’t really need to buy anything else for the apartment, so now I just need to actually make enough money to get by.